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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Concerns Raised over Paris Climate Goals

New analysis shows that the science underpinning the global treaty aiming to stop average temperatures rising more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels urgently needs more research.

Breaching the lower emissions limit set at the historic Paris Agreement on climate change last December may expose the world to damage caused by rising temperatures, scientists say.And to achieve the Agreement’s goals, they say controversial and still-unproven technologies − including bio-energy and carbon capture and storage − will be needed.A new analysis of the science and policy underlying the 1.5°C temperature rise limit included in the Agreement’s long-term temperature goal has identified several areas that its authors say need more research.The Agreement aims to keep global average temperature rise “well below” the 2°C previously agreed, and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.The analysis by a team of scientists − including from Climate Analytics and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) − who have published key research papers on the science, impacts and policy aspects of the 1.5˚C limit is the centerpiece of a collection of content by Nature Climate Change, Nature Geoscience and Nature journals, titled Targeting 1.5°C.Low emission pathwaysMuch of their focus is on what available science says on low emission pathways that could achieve 1.5˚C. They say most such scenarios at least temporarily overshoot the 1.5˚C limit − that warming would rise above this level before returning to below 1.5˚C by 2100.“Whether the presently available pathways are in line with the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal is not a scientific but a political question,” says the paper’s lead author, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, scientific adviser at Climate Analytics. “Many vulnerable countries see 1.5°C as a limit that should not be exceeded..“Further research on the feasibility of pathways that limit warming to below 1.5°C is therefore a central element of a post-Paris science agenda.”Read more at Concerns Raised over Paris Climate Goals